A Discovery Of Witches 10-31-14 pages 0-13, chapter one.

     You guys have no idea how much I missed reading something with an actual plot.
     Also Witches for Halloween. Pure ironic incident.

     In Oxford University is a witch of the name Diana Bishop, from two very long powerful lines of witchcraft. Diana however, wants nothing to do with magic or sorcery or anything of the kind. Her parents raised her with magic, and sometimes it scared her. They went around the world studying artifacts, and once went to an exhibition to Africa and never came back.

     She's tried to distance her self from it, from her family name, and stop herself from using it by accident. When she was 16 she entered collage and became affiliated in the theatrical arts, where she ended up becoming a little more than in character. Her appearance and actions changed to suit her roles in and out of the scenes, and she took other cast members with her. After such unfortunate happenings she moved onto science, and has since started to try and translate old text of alchemy into modern sense and formulas.

     Since then she has come across and ancient lost book called the Ashmole 782, a book sealed with magic and images that tempt her to touch so she can sense their history and understand more. She takes a few notes on it, and apprehensively banishes it back to the stacks. Nothing has quite happened yet, but the inside sleeve says this occurrence causes "...a fantastical underworld stirring." so that's is going to be quite exciting!

CoA Narrative: The Violet Widow; a Tale of Betrayal and Unrequited Love

It is dark here for with no torch I can scarcely see. After a long, disappointingly quiet walk I make it to the entrance of my family's catacombs. The long winding staircase saw only me, for my friend, unfortunately for him, would walk up them no longer.


I'm sure he knows now what he has done. I pretended I would allow it. Pretended that the confession of her love to him did not upset me. It did, however. It pained me like a thousand knives stuck and twisted, poisoning the trust I had for the both of them and anyone else, feeding my anger as if it was oil to a lamp.


It was always supposed to be me. It was practically planned. But no, he had to come along and spoil, akin to rotten fruit. They joined in matrimony soon after telling of their betrayal.


Oh dear sweet Violetta, you brought this upon yourself. You are the only one to blame now. Your sorrow will all be my pleasure.



(Second/Extended Ending)


It has been fifty one days the disappearance of her dear Lord Fortunato. The case has since been closed, and she's lost all hope of his return. I sit in front of the flower that I once owned. She is dawned respectably in black, as I am. She offers me a drink and pours a glass of wine when I comply. She does not drink herself.


We converse briefly about our social circles and how the people we know are faring before we come to the subject of her and her husband. She believes he is dead, much as I expected her to due to her choice of clothing and the Chrysanthemums that adorn the vases around the home.

"You believe that Savio is dead as well I presume?" she asked, eyeing my dress.

"Indeed I do." I replied, noting that I should most likely be quite careful with how I respond.

"What makes you imagine that?"

"Well it isn't quite like him to abandon the people he loves quite so suddenly and lengthily, and we don't have any evidence of capture."

"However no body or evidence of death has been brought up either." she countered, peering coldly at me. I faltered.

"I know you did not take kindly to our romance Montresor, but neither of us meant you any harm or shame from it."

"I do not understand what you mean."

"I went with him to the celebration and saw you lead him away. You dawned a mask of black silk and brought him to you home. Then you returned and he did not. Jealousy is not a healthy thing, nor is it valid reason to murder."

"You are imagining things my dear, I assure you I would never do such a thing." I said with a laugh, playing it all off as if she was simply playing a joke.

"Montresor do you love me?" she asked suddenly.

"Well, yes, I suppose that I do, but this is neither the time or the place; you are presumed a widow now."

"Were you happy for Savio and I on our day of matrimony, or were you angered that I had not chose you?"

"Well I-"

"I can always tell when you are about to fib Montresor," She interjected "I suggest that you choose your words wisely."

I sat silently, wondering how I would manage to change the subject. To my utter misfortune, Violetta found her answer in my sealed lips.

"Do you know why I did not enter into union with you Montresor? It's because you did not truly love me, not even as a person. Savio did. To you I am a prize to be won or lost. If you had loved me my joy from being with Savio would have brought you happiness and content in it's self. However, it brought jealousy and death. If you think my pain will bring you satisfaction you are sadly mistaken."

I bowed my head.

"Rosa!" she called to the servant passing in the hall, "Lord Montresor is going to take his leave now, would you please get him is coat?"

Any Prompt? 10-24-14

(Now that I've slightly startled you all with that, let's get down to business)

     So I've kind of noticed that I've been heading out of my comfort zone lately. A while ago on Goodreads I made a folder of books I plan to read this grade. Our of nine books, five of them are non-fiction. That's more than half. Only one of them is even remotely fantasy, which is something I sort of stuck to for a while; like that one piece of gum on the the bottom of your shoe that you don't notice until you walk on something tile and it starts to make a strange sloping noise every time you step. The only one being the last of the Ascension Trilogy with Jaron the 15-year-old king leading his kingdom into what will soon be a war. (Remember the cunning sarcastic little thing that I really like which made me question myself in my top ten book list? He is the thing.) The other three are the last two books in the Maze Runner series, which is odd too since I don't like distopian either, and Freaks and Revelations, which is realistic fiction.

     Although I must make point that two of the books are only on the list because of the author, (Take the Cannoli, The Partly Cloudy Patriot- Sarah Vowell) and the another one is a biography of sorts(?) by Amanda Palmer who is one of my favorite music artists and the wife of Neil Gaiman. The last two fall into the same category as The Invention of Murder because I like murder history and forensics. The Poisoners Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York seems like it will be an interesting read and there is actually a documentary on it, so that will be quite un to watch afterwards as well. The last and final one is of the also very long title (why do they all have such long titles anyway it's not like they have to compensate for something their books they'll be interesting regardless-) of Victorian Murderesses: A True History of Thirteen Respectable French and English Women Accused of Unspeakable Crimes. 

     So those will be the books I plan to read this grade. A lot of history and murder. I guess the moods will match my spooky background. 

Time Travel Q&A

Okay so before we start with this I want to make something very clear. In my mind, there are two types of time travel scenarios. The first being static, where no matter what, when you exist nothing changes because it happened already. Like if you caused butterfly's not to exist, the future wouldn't change from what you were from because you grew up with the extinction of butterflies and all that was caused do to it.

It would look like this.

__________________________


The other is parallel. In "The Sound Of Thunder" the change in the past, caused a branch off of the original time line where everything was then changed. Sort of like this. Dotted line is parallel due to change, solid line is original, 0 is point of change.

-----------------

_____________0____________





Q: Where would you go?


If my point was to change something, I would do something connected to my own life. If it wasn't, I would want to see what Berwyn and our suburban area looked like 70 years ago when all of our houses were new and being built because I like architecture.


Q:To which year or period would you travel?


Earlier 2000's, 2002-2005.


Q: Who would you want to meet or what event would you want to witness?

My mom to ask her something explained later.


Q: Where would you find this person or see this event?

In the house we live in now.
Q: Why would you want to meet this person or witness this event?\


When I was little my mom had a friend named Kate who had a son my age named Fin. We'd play together while they talked. He was my first friend. Around the end of pre-school our mom's had an argument about something Kate did or lied about that my mom didn't like and they stopped being friends. I haven't seen Fin since. I'd ask if we could still have playdates and be friends even though she and Kate weren't, because i think it's kind of unfair.


Q: How might YOU change history?


Maybe my mom and Kate would have made up and have a tolerance for one another. Perhaps Fin and I would still be friends. I'd also be able to apologize to his little sister for all of the mean things I did that at the time I hadn't realized were mean. I am the reason I don't like little kids.

Passion Project: What are you looking to achieve? 10-21-14

What do you want to do for your passion project? What will this look like? How long will this take to achieve?

     For my Passion Project I want to publish/submit my short stories and poetry to lit. magazines for young adults like us. So far in sight I have Cicada, which has a prompt each month. However I will look for a magazine that does not, so I can publish ones previously written. The plus with Cicada at least is that they'll buy the rights to it so I'll get paid! It's all very fun.
     It's a longer process that could take up to almost a year, but when something does get accepted it will be in a magazine.

Why do you want to do this for your project? What are you looking to achieve? How will you know if you've been successful?

     Every since sixth grade when I sort of started to get my story ideas solidified and onto paper I've wanted to get them published. It's sort of been a three year dream of mine at this point in time. And besides, I have a lot of ideas and plots in my head, why not share them with people?
     I know I'll be successful when I get the news that something of mine is getting published. It doesn't matter if it happens soon or over the summer or not until I'm in high school because no matter when I'll have been successful.

Unfamiliar Fishes 10-16-14 pages 1-29

     So due to the fact that I am reading a book about the author discovering the history of Hawaii, I don't actually have any characters. So instead of doing character development, I'm going to write about how the subject of the story is developed.

     So I know that I've described the way Sarah Vowell writes already, but I'm going to do it again anyway. When she writes about the history of a place, she always does it while she's there and brings in past experiences and research on people and occurrences that have to do with that history. 

For example on page 27 in the second paragraph she takes note of how Hawaiian people take a different approach to gathering information. On a forum she was looking at to find out the meaning of the Hawaiian word kupuna one person commented with regard to other people's opinions and how he hoped not to offend anyone in anyway. Unlike the various French men who published articles covering various topics in the book titled Encyclopédie, which had been brought up the paragraph before. One of of the name Denis Diderot had a mission statement (a formal summary of the aims and values of a company, organization, or individual.) that stated "All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings." 
Using her past she connects how the cultures and mannerisms of the people are different.

     In the beginning she describes how America sort of took over a lot of islands in WW2 in order to fight Japan, with little to no regard of the people who lived there. This, of course, included Hawaii, which already had a bit of history with them.
This is how the author says she got into the history of Hawaii in  the first place. 

     She then moves on, out of curiosity, to the only Palace in America. She then writes about how Queen Liliuokalani was overthrown by "the sons of churchy New-Englanders". After explaining what happened in about half a page, she then remarks that she was in Hawaii at the time in 2003. The same time an Iraqi dictator of the name Saddam was overthrown by the same government. Connecting the two incidences she says "Still, there's an identifiable link between the two overthrows, an American tendency to indulge in what trendy government lingo was calling at the time a "regime change"."

     The way she develops the subject really is through her style, which is to talk about one thing on subject, then connect it to something else she is familiar with enough to do so. To me it makes it more interesting. Not only are you learning about the history of Hawaii in this case, but you also learn about other little snippets of history that have sort of been ignored in our education so far. To be honest I can really tell why a lot of countries don't like ours. We take over everything with no regard to the people already there. Not much has changed I guess.

Reflective writing 10-6-14

     This week last year I did a blog on the collection of short stories called On The Fringe. The story in question being of the title, "Standing On The Roof Naked". It seems long winded, but I didn't really write anything of my own. Instead, most of it was the entire first page of the story, and the last paragraph. The writing I did in it's self to me looking back seems like just a run on sentence chopped up by little dots that cause the flow to go all wrong. I also use pretty short to the point sentences, which I still do but not as much any more. I express my opinion, and the basic plot of the story that isn't conveyed through the quotes, but it isn't formatted as smoothly as it probably could have been. I rambled, and if any of you have heard me do so in person with my voice instead of with type, it's not that great of a thing for me to do. 

     I do however think that I relayed my thoughts properly, though the formatting and spacing of the words could be a little bit better. Double spacing my paragraphs was not a thing I had in mind while writing that. 

Yichk

Unfamiliar Fishes- 10-3-14 pages 1-15

What I am reading is historical non-fiction, about the sad history of Hawaii and it's unfortunate take over by America.

In what is described as "an orgy of imperialism" The United states Annexed Hawaii among a number of other island territories. The author, Sarah Vowell, writes about these things in her quirky often humorous accounts and personal experiences in the place she writes about. 

I suppose that this type of writing would be considered first person historical or something, since Sarah does incorporate a lot of her own experiences and and funny thoughts and takes on things. For example, the first two sentences in the book go as follows: "Why is there a glop of macaroni salad next to the Japanese chicken on my plate lunch? Because the ship Thaddeus left Boston Harbor with the first boatload of New England missionaries bound for Hawaii in 1819."

She then goes on in a somewhat roundabout way to explain how so many cultures and then tourists eventually wound up there, causing a huge mish-mosh of cultures that; in the small area the Islands are; are all minorities. When a bunch of different cultures mix, the types of food do also, causing the extremely odd common cuisine mentioned in the first sentence. It isn't only Japanese Chicken and Macaroni Salad theres a bunch of other things that can be put together on a lunch plate but back to my point.
She writes things in extremely interesting ways.

In one spot on page 14 she states: "It's laughable to think that a lava rock temple--built at least a century before the Declaration of Independence was signed five thousand miles away, has much to do with the history of the United States.(Though it is entertaining to wonder what John Adams would make of the sacrificial demands of ferocious priest kings given all that fuss about Parliament taxing tea.)"
I quite enjoy her unique voice throughout the books she writes, and I plan to read several others. It makes the history less dry, which, sadly, is not something I can say about "The Invention of Murder" -and the rest of the title- at all....